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Shattered-Earth — Illustrator CS5 - EASY Line Width/Weight Tutorial
Published: 2012-02-17 18:21:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 20499; Favourites: 502; Downloads: 523
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Description
Easy Line Width/Weight for Illustrator CS5Share on tumblr: [link] (:
As of right now I'm pretty sure this is a tool only for CS5, sorry if you do not have this version!
This is just a quick reference I made for people because I had a lot of trouble doing this the last few months until i found out there was a new tool @_@. Before this i would spend forever using a special triangle brush just fiddling with lines till they were how i wanted. Now there's no need to do it anymore omg SO EASY D:
Extra things you can do:
• Delete a width point: Just click on one and hit "delete"
• Select multiple points: Shift + Click each point
Official support page: [link]
This journal from =firstfear has a little animation showing what it would look like while adjusting line widths and more exameples:
Tapered Stroke (Illustrator)I just feel like sharing my joy at figuring this out haha xD
For the longest time I've not bothered with tapering my strokes in Illustrator b/c i couldn't figure out how to do it effectively. I knew one could achieve it by creating a tapered brush and applying that to the stroke, but I could just never get it to work right for me. It would seem that CS5 now has a built in function that allows you to alter the line thickness -anywhere there is a point along the path- by hitting shift+W and dragging :D
For those who do not have CS5, try this: [link]
If there are any other questions I will try to answer them but I am new to using this tool as well
You can also do something similar in Paint Tool Sai!
Related content
Comments: 157
to my knowledge ( i do not have the most updated illustrator version) there's no gradient for strokes, but there is for shapes, so you can expand a stroke into a shape, then put a gradient in the fill?
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Who knew there was something like this in illustrator O.o I will try it right away. thanks for sharing!
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THIS IS EVEYTHING I DREAMED
I NEEED TO UPGRADE TO CS5 NOW I ONLY HAVE CS4
FFFFFFFFFFF
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ahh good luck upgrading xOx
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aww you should upgrade, cs5 is soooo nice, and i'm sure cs6 is too!
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Wooowww!!!... is exactly what I was looking for.... fabulous, Greetings
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great! i just had to share this XD
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it's always been and hopefully always will be XD
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Mind = blown O_O
Thanks so much for this tut, it's saved me heaps of time!
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Fantastic! Good to hear :3
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So so helpful!
This should get a DD...it's a feature to point out!! I might have to start doing my lineart on Illustrator again! xD
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lol! oh gosh as nice as that would be, i would like my DD to be my regular art some day too XD
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Awwww I'm sure that time will come. <3
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Woah this is a breakthrough for adobe people, specially the for those who wants to make lineart. Now they dont have to redraw the whole thing anymore
too bad that its for illustrator and not photoshop E_E"
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Hahahha ikr! Maybe in CS6.. XD. You can always make it in illustrator and then export it thought
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woooow, thanks a lot for sharing, is just i was looking for 3:
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Perfect! glad it could help you
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unfortunately i don't think so
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no problem! I hope you can put it to good use
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I linked to a linewidth tutorial in the description for those not using cs4, another alternative is to expand all strokes though
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OH!! I didn't knew that existed!! This is such a great help!
Thanks!!
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no problem, lots of people didn't know xOx
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This is also possible in SAI. :3 Basically the same concept. ^^
Great tut, very handy.
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Yup two other deviants have said that about sai already XD
I am planning to do a short tut for sai though it's not as flexible as illustrator i find
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Haha, I've never worked with Illustrator so I wouldn't know. x)
Good luck!
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... or. you could just do the same thing after the Expand Appearance phase of your normal brushwork,when you lock down your vector to shapes so they dont distort with resizing.
but of course if your workflow is to leave Expand Appearance on file iterations that you final output to,and keep every other files brushworks still as paths,this would be the way to go to see your end result in said files.
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I never expand my brush work because it's harder to adjust entire sets of lines or move things, because you can only adjust like one segment at a time, or when you move some points it doesn't really dynamically adjust other points, only the line that's directly next to it. The line with tool actually makes the width's a smooth transition as possible so it takes a lot of the fiddly work out of it.
Of course if it's in your workflow you can always adjust the linewidths and then expand them all and then readjust as you fit too XD. I think one of the great things about the adobe suite is that there are just so many ways to do the same thing, everyone has their own method (:
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i agree:everyone has their own workflow.
but if you never Expand Appearance your brushwork,how do you maintain your lines scale when you enlarge your art? or dont you ever work with larger sizes?
ive done a couple of city billboards during my stint as creative manager for some international retail. i can tell you,without Expand Appearance,none of my lines would be legible and proportional to the graphics,gwahahaha.
anyways. good contribution tut.
all the best in your works.
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Haha well I generally work at the scale i need the final product to be (I don't do billboards or anything like that, poor me XD) so I don't have this issue but I did some googling..
The regular selection tool + resize will make the lines go to poop, but if you select everything you need to be resized and go to Object > Transform > Scale, then input the % increase and check the box "Scale Strokes & Effects". When the image is resized the strokes stay proportional as well. It works for me when i tried it but see if it works for you? I hope I am not misunderstanding the question XD
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gwahahaha -no,youre not misunderstanding anything. unfortunately,it isnt idiotproof,so not all printing services technicians will get this procedure,and with their workloads [plus egos] its usually a little harder to make people change or expect them to pick up on such things.
if you have access to your own printer and|or technicians who understand this,it will work out fine. otherwise,committing everything to Expand Appearance will likely be your saviour when you need a resize by proxy,done by them.
preparing for worst case scenarios is usually the better way to go.
but again,i enjoy your tutorial and by all the response,its given a lot of positivity for people.
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Ahh i see what you mean, yea if i were sending an .ai file to the printers i would not trust it either XD. It would have to be .eps or pdf >_<. Never trust a file to someone else what you can do yourself @_@
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nice tutorial earth!, this is really helpful since i just started learning about illustrator. It would be nice if I could do that in sai paint tool too. But i will consider to use Ai for lineart in the future.
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You kind of can do it in sai actually, i just learned how yesterday when someone told me @_@!! I might do a short tutorial on it too XD
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o.o really? you should totally do it, it'll be useful in the future.
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Yea next time you use sai look for the "pressure" tool on the vector layer xOx. I will definitely have to make a little tutorial for sure now XD
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